Situation Down at Yale

Those who are in command of the reconstruction here at Yale have it in their power to increase the happiness of the individual student by a large degree and furthermore to enhance the unity of the college if they will take into account in their building program that about one-third of an undergraduate's time is dedicated to respite from labor. Beautiful dormitories, recitation halls, libraries, and athletic fields, while they afford a certain amount of pleasure, they do not in any way appease a certain desire in every human being to get away from things, to go where the roar of the work-a-day world can be heard no more. No matter what diversions are planned for in the "new life" at Yale, it will not be possible to make young men 100 per cent content with a "city college." Week-ending is not caused by a dissatisfaction with the University, but by a fervent eagerness to get a change in atmosphere. Those who wish to discourage our "exodus" do so without a real understanding of the problem.

We offer the embryonic suggestion that Yale attempt to supply some country life to those for whom it is not immediately available. A large tract of land could be procured in the country fairly near New Haven. This property could be equipped with a rambling shack of some kind, and preferably it should include on it a small lake. In the Fall and Spring students could spend their leisure hours there, reading, swimming, and basking in the sun. It might even turn into a "nudist colony"; then Yale would have something besides "architecture" for which it could be discussed all over the United States. And in the winter there would be an opportunity to skate and ski and tramp through the woods. It is really enjoyable at times to go off into the country, cook one's own food, sleep out of doors, all with a minimum of hardship.

The greatest criticism of Yale is that one must be boxed up in a city for four years, and this scheme presents a way out of the difficulty. Several groups of students have from time to time considered renting little farmhouses for use over week-ends; these same groups could build their own shacks on the Yale University Lake. Here is a real field of philanthropy for some generous alumnus. Yale News.